Letting go is never easy! Many of us feel that letting go is a painful act. Most of thge time we are forced to let go against our will. The process of letting go can sometimes makes us bitter, or even angry at God.

So why do we have to let go?

First, God asks us to let go of things that is not good for our physical and spiritual health. Most of us sinners are holding the very things that will destroy us. We are like junkies who think drugs are good for us. We all have destructive addictions. It may be substance addiction like drugs or alcohol. It could be worldly addictions like sex, stuffs or money. It can be fame and power which our egos are addicted to. Now there is nothing evil with them as it is. But to make them the center of our life, now that is a problem. Alcohol in itself is not a problem, being a drunkard is!

That being said, God as a Good Father does not like seeing His children destroying themselves. So He asks us to let go of these things. He asks us to let go of this destructive vices not to be a “kill joy” but because He is a “give joy”. God is not a dictator but a loving Father.

A drug addict is not a picture of a human being fully alive. He is a picture of a slave. Saint Irenaeus said “The Glory of God is a man fully alive.”

God wants us to let go because He wants us to be free for our sinful addictions that would lead to our destruction, in this life and in the next. “It was for freedom that Christ set us free” - Galatians 5:1

Jesus said “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, would give him a snake instead of the fish?” Most of us are holding snakes and we do not know it. The Father is asking us to let go of the snake so He can give the fish.

Second reason, He wants to give us something or someone better. Sometimes we cling to good thing for too long. This letting go is a lot harder than the first. We often ask God why he would want us to let go of something good. It is good right? We often say “Why can't I keep it God?” or “What is wrong with you God? Why do you take all that is good in my life?”

We are like little children. There is a party waiting for us outside, and we choose to stay in playing our little games. And at the end of the day we missed out the joy of the party and the gifts that come along with it. All because we held on too long and did not let go.

It is painful to let go. But holding on to the wrong things or holding them for too long can make us miss life.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

One can be lost in life. And many of us are, whether we know it or not.

One can exhaust life without living it.

Many of us define life as pleasure. The more pleasure, the more we feel alive. But is that what is all about? Many of us have also experienced that after the pleasure comes the hang over, comes the misery we were running away from. Misery can never be cured by pleasure. Misery can only be cured by love.

This redeeming love has a name, the name of the Redeemer, Jesus the Christ. Only in Christ can life be alive.

“For in him were all things created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him and in him” - Colossians 1:16

Jesus is the source, center and summit of our life.

Since Jesus made Himself the source of our lives, we need Him. We need him not only in our thoughts and imagination, we need Him physically. We humans are both spirit and flesh. We need to be alive not only in spirit but also in body. That is why Jesus left us His very Self in the Eucharist. “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.” – Matthew 28:20.

The Most Holy Eucharist is the body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. In short, the Eucharist is Jesus Himself, in the appearance of bread and wine. When we consume the Host, we consume Jesus Himself.

In the Eucharist, our whole being receives life itself. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” says Jesus. All the life in the universe enters not only our spirit but our bodies as well. The Life that created everything now flows in our very veins, in our very blood.

When we partake of the Eucharist we also let love in, a love that is not just an emotion or attraction, but realest love. We let Love Himself, Jesus who is love made flesh, in our own flesh.

The Eucharist is "the source and summit of the Christian life." "The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ himself, our Pasch." – 1324 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Only Jesus can give us life and life to the full. Until we make Him the very center of the fabric of our being, we shall remain miserable. We were made for love, and love is our only true joy. And this love can only be found in Jesus.

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. -Jn 6:53

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

There is an irony when the advertising and media industry says that using condom is the “responsible” thing to do and therefore what a “real man” ought to do.

But is it?

If “being responsible” means putting a rubber because you cannot control your urges, that is not “being responsible”. How can you be called responsible when you cannot even take responsibility in controlling your urges? You use condom to give in to your urges, not control them.

If “being responsible” means not respecting the body of your wife, and therefore your wife herself, by manipulating her to scratch every time you itch, that is not “being responsible”. That is what you called “being a user.” You have made your wife a prostitute who lives to give you pleasure.

God created man to protect their wives. Not to use them. Real men protect their wives, especially to themselves.

Real men take responsibility for their actions. They take responsibility for their urges. Real men know self-discipline, especially with their desires. Real men are the masters of their desires and not the other way around.

Monday, May 16, 2011

Many of us are burdened, if not caught up with our past. More than the consequences of our past actions, we let the memory of the past drag us down. We like to hit the rewind button in our memory and lick the wounds of long ago. We open up one painful memory and then a sudden flood of other unpleasant memories comes rushing in. And downward spiral we go.

We spend most of our time entertaining our bitterness, pains and disappointments of yesterday. We even spend countless hours just imagining the day we will get our vindication or even vengeance from past hurts. As we waste our time dwelling in our past, our present is wasted as well. And the sad thing is that our today is our tomorrow’s yesterday. Wasting the present now is just adding up to our wasted past. And the vicious cycle continues.

Many of us are also so anxious about our future. While our bodies reside in the present moment, our mind has time traveled years from now. We spend much time being worried and gloomy to things that has not happened yet. We are so absorbed in the “What Ifs” that we forget the “What nows?”

Our present also affects our future very much. To have a better tomorrow is to have a better today. Our actions today will greatly affect our future, good or bad. To waste your time today being anxious about tomorrow is to waste the opportunity to improve your tomorrow.

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Mt 6:34

To live life is to live in the present moment. The past is dead and the future is yet unborn. The key to healing the past and having a hopeful future lies to what you will decide to do NOW. Now is the only thing we really got. If you waste the present moment by dwelling in the past or being anxious about the future, you end up loosing everything.

The past belongs to God’s mercy, the future to His Providence and the present to His Love. To live in the present moment is to accept and experience God’s love here and now.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage, like any virtue, becomes alive when it is put to the test by its opposite pole, cowardice. One cannot be courageous in front of a flying butterfly, but one practice courage in front of flying bullets. The courageous man feels fear, but does not let his fear cripple him. Sometimes courage takes form of a coward moving forward the line of battle.

The Hobbits in the Lord of the Rings are small and peaceful folks. They are not bread for battle. They live their life safely in the Shire.

It takes greater courage for Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin to in taking the mission of destroying the One Ring than anyone in the Fellowship. They not only lack in size but also lack in the skill of fighting. They all have a reason to bail out, for it was suicide on their part. How could four small Hobbits fight against orcs, dragons and Sauron himself?

But the four did not give in to cowardice. They were afraid the whole time, but they pushed through. They have faced giants, literally, with only a knife and a big heart. And in the end, their knives and a big hearts defeated the giants of giants, Sauron

We humans are a fearful bunch. That is why the Scriptures are filled of “Be not afraid” passages. God knows we are fearful. God knows we are cowards. And that is why there is “grace

Like the Hobbits, we all have our giants to face. Our life might look like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, fighting one battle to the next. We might feel the darkness looming in. We are tempted to despair. Is there hope for victory in all of these adversities

The Hobbits never gave up. And there were a lot of situations that they could have. How many times they were captured by the enemy? How many times they were in the brink of death? But they fought. Sometimes they fought even though they knew that it was a no win scenario. The Hobbits had no plans of dying like cowards.

In the end, the Hobbits finished what they set out to do. They were victorious. They won not because of their great strength nor fighting skills. They won because they did not quit. They won because even when the odds were against them, they hanged on.

“Courage is fear holding on a minute longer.” - George S. Patton

So how can we be courageous

“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” - 1 John 4:18

Love is the source of our courage. To know that God loves us is the supreme reason for our courage, for if God is with us, who is against us? To choose faithfulness to God is to choose victory. No matter what adversities comes to us, even if death is nearing, it does not have the final word. Death has been defeated by the Resurrection. And we too shall rise in Christ in this life and in the next if we choose Him

Our love for our neighbor is also a source of courage. When we learn to put them before us, we are prepared to sacrifice our very self for their sake. We are ready to carry their crosses with them. We are ready to make risks for them

When we let go of our selfishness we let go of our fear. For in the center of fear is ourselves. We are afraid to lose ourselves. And we will do all things necessary to protect it. And in saving ourselves, we lose our lives. A coward lives in his small protected world. He has cut himself from the rest of the world. A coward’s life is a boring life.

Victory belongs to the lovingly courageous people. It takes a lot of courage to love. But in having the courage to love we shall find life itself. Christ Himself.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Lord of the Rings is one of the greatest fantasy novels ever written. And it was written by a devout Catholic, J.R.R. Tolkien, who was also a friend of C.S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. The Lord of the Rings is full of Christian symbolism and lessons. So let us dig in.

So what can we learn from our little hairy-footed friends?

Hobbit Habit #1: Cheerfulness.

Hobbits are a cheery bunch of Halflings. They like to drink, eat and be merry, which typically translate to singing and dancing. But their cheerfulness is unlike ours. Theirs is simpler and therefore merrier. They don’t need a big event to celebrate. Being together is enough reason to be merry.

Most of us are miserable because we have forgotten to be merry in small and simple things. We modern people want our celebrations big, bold, and gimmicky and attended by the famous. No wonder we do the most stupid things just to say we had fun. We have forgotten that we are celebrating because we are among friends who are sharing our joy.

Hobbits does not really need too much reason to be merry, they just simply do because they like to. Their simple life, their simple hearts makes them easy to please. For the most of us, our lack of the virtue of simplicity is the source of our discontent. Our discontent leads to frustration, which leads to misery.

The Hobbits can sing and dance because they know how to get caught in the moment. They are not self-conscious of what others would think of them. They are more absorbed in enjoying the moment than looking good. Because they are caught in joy, they become heralds of joy to others. When hobbits start singing and dancing on top of tables, everybody joins in. They are the life of the party because their heart is alive with joy.

For us Christian, Jesus is the source and reason of our joy. Pope Benedict XVI writes in his book Jesus of Nazareth (II), “In faith we know that Jesus holds his hands stretched out in blessing over us. That is the lasting motive of Christian joy.”

They say that the sign that the Holy Trinity is dwelling in you is joy. Joy is a sign of a true Christian who is in love with God.

Be a good cheer, Jesus has overcome the world and everything in between.

Sunday, May 8, 2011

To live in the darkness of sin is to be blind to the beauty of God’s creation. Sin blurs the true, good and beautiful. We cannot see and appreciate the true, good and beautiful in creation because we are obsessed in abusing creation. A lustful man cannot see the beauty of a woman for he only sees her body, only her body. He has stripped her and her body of any sacredness and dignity. Her body becomes merely an object of his lustful and perverse desires. A greedy man cannot appreciate what he has for he has already set his eyes on his next object of desire.

Sin also blinds us because it stops us from seeing others. We only see others in relation of their use to ourselves. When a lustful man sees a woman he thinks “I want to use her.” A greedy man sees others as a means to his goals.

With sin there is only “I” there are no “others”.

“I am the light of the world.” says Jesus. Only in His light can we see the true, good and beautiful in creation and in people. In His light and by His light creation finds meaning. In Christ we see not only the beauty of a person, but his value, his worth. Man is worth dying for. And that is what God did.

We can only see our beauty in light of God, for He is the only and true source of our dignity. Take God out of the equation, we all become commodities to each other.

How long we live in the darkness of sin? How much more misery before we repent and turn our back from our sins? How much wretchedness will we endure before we walk toward the light of the Son?

Saturday, May 7, 2011

The movie Rio is about a macaw parrot Blu, the last male of his species, who was needed to be taken to Rio, so that he can mate with a female, Jewel, to preserve the species.

Blu has been domesticated for 15 years and its effect is that he does not know how to fly. Most of his life he lived inside the store of his owner Linda. His inability to fly becomes his biggest problem when he was set loose in Rio.

A parrot that cannot fly is a funny sight indeed. Or is it?

Blu was made to fly, that is his very bird-iness. But domestication has stripped him of this ability. He has become less of a bird that he was meant to be. This handicapped have limited not only him but his world. While the birds were flying outside, he was stuck inside the bookstore.

On a side note, the bookstore was a good symbol of much of our lives. We have a lot of head knowledge and little experience on realities of life.

Many of us are like Blu, domesticated. We have attached our lives, ourselves to pleasure and convenience that we abhor the practice of virtues. We have become spiritually slothful. We have stopped exercising the wings of our soul. We have become lazy in building our character. Our main objective in life is to have a fun and easy life, and the hell with the rest.

Like Blu, we have chosen to become less than who we truly are. In our laziness, we have compromised the greatness God destined us for mediocrity. “Too much effort” is too much effort for the many of us. Why be virtuous? Why strive for greatness when you can have fun? Why risk it when I can be safe in my own little world?

Why indeed?

If you like to stay grounded instead of soaring, then choose mediocrity. Stay trapped in your own little world, your little cage.

But if one wants to soar in life and live life to the full, one must remember who one is. We must remember that we are children of God. As birds are created to fly, we are created to be saints.

So how did Blu learned to fly?

He did when he forgot his fears, his self, his very life.

When Jewel fell from the plane with a broken wing, Blu jumped after her even though he did not knew how to fly. You can say that love pushed him off the plane and into Jewel. It is in this act of love that Blu learned to fly.

It is true with us bipeds as well. Only love can make us fully human. When we forget ourselves and give it to others, we shall find our true humanity. Our life can only soar with the wings of love. To stay selfish is too stay stuck and grounded.

ove as we can see demands risk and sacrifice. Blu took a risk of sacrificing his life to save Jewel. Love is not something that happens in our heads. It is very real, so real that you can touch it, like the cross of Christ. Love without action is not love, it is a silly imagination.

So let the parrot lead you in soaring in life. The high life God has called and made us for.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Like the people in the New Testament, we get stuck with God's physical miracles and not the spiritual. We feel God loves us when He makes us rich and curse Him when He tries to make us holy through trials. We want the miracle of the multiplication of the bread and not the conversion of the heart

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God's love "demands" perfection, that is why we cannot escape the moral consequences of His love in our lives. God loves us too much to leave us in our own misery, the misery of being a sinner. To deny the demands is to deny healing. And that is what we all do.

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We like to create a version of Jesus for ourselves that would tolerate us and not love us. I think that is the reason a lot of people like to call themselves "spiritual" and not religious. They don't want to be redeemed, they want to be left alone.

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If you love Jesus, then you must seek the Truth, for He is the Truth. To love someone is to want to know them. If say you love Jesus and cares not for the Truth, then your relationship with Him is an imagination you made up to satisfy your needs. Your love for Jesus is anything but love.

Joy is what everybody longs for. Most of us have sought it through selfishness, lust and greed. And we have discovered that these ways are fleeting, shallow and leaves us empty in the end.

So how do we find joy?

Let Woody show you.

Woody is one of the main characters in the animated trilogy Toy Story. Woody always knew who he was and his purpose. So what are they?

1. He belong to Andy2. He is a toy made for the enjoyment of others. 3. He is happy when he is giving happiness to children.

Woody does not live for himself. He always reminds his fellow toys that he and they belong to Andy. And then shows the bottom of his boots with “Andy” marked on it.

Like Woody we who are baptized have been marked. Baptism seals a Christian with the indelible spiritual mark (character) of his belonging to Christ. St Paul says: “And that you are not your own? For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body.” 1 Cor 6: 19-20. We do not belong to ourselves, Christ owns us.

It is hard for us to stomach all this "belonging to Christ" talk. In a society where “freedom” and “independence” is the ultimate good, God has become a threat. “It’s my way or the highway” is the modern culture’s motto. Has our way lead us to the joy we are looking for? Or is it just a long highway of loneliness and misery?

The media has done a great job sowing the seeds of discontent by constantly reminding us of what we “don’t have” instead of what “we can give.” So we are in the vicious “If-I-Only-Have-This-I-Will-Be-Happy” cycle. Wake up call, you will never have everything you want in this world. They are found in heaven.

God created us to love. Love is our joy.

The self is given to be given away.

The toys in Toy Story are most joyful when they were played with. The last thing they wanted was to be left in the trunk, useless. Most of us have shut ourselves in the trunk of our own selfishness. We have chosen to live in a dark, lonely and miserable place. And we delude ourselves it is a happy place.

We are most ourselves when we forget ourselves. Getting lost in love (agape) is where we will find our true identity and meaning.

Who is the Animated Catholic?

is Daxx Bondoc, a Catholic animator/blogger responding to Blessed John Paul II's call for the New Evangelization using the "new media". This blog is faithful to the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.
Email me at: theanimatedcatholic@gmail.com